Rewaken Crusade
by Acrosyth
Summary: Rileya Stohess lives a rather dull life as the daughter of a CEO and longs to be out in the world which she has been constantly denied. Acrion Sientus is an assassin for ONI special forces, or so he thinks. Antoinette Toreth is just a member of a secret organization, whose objective is righteous yet severely shrouded. Their paths collide, and the Stars makes change to fate.


Chapter 1: Rileya Stohess **POV: Rileya Stohess**

The world outside Stohess Mansion seemed so far away from Rileya as she looked into the mirror thinking to herself. The hand glass reflected a rather bored expression. She tilted her head as if to try and see herself from a different angle, but it was the same. She fell back onto her bed.

"_My family has owned this business of making arms forever," _She thought as she lay. _"It goes all the way back to around the medieval era, when our family first made swords and experimental rope equipment. All the way till now where we make and test experimental plasma weaponry. I bet it was like this then too for the next head of the business the same sights, sounds and people. Does it ever change? That's a stupid question. Of course it doesn't. Nothing does. And what's worse, it never will. I'm doomed to be the CEO of this monster of a company."_

As she lay thinking, the intercom buzzed and the a voice resounded through the room, "Rileya Stohess, please report to the Security Office immediately."

"Great. More 'how to be a CEO' crap Mother keeps giving me. This stuff just never ends."

Rileya got up, put her coat on and walked out her bedroom door into the familiar corridors of the mansion.

"Now that I think about it, I know this place like the back of my hand," She mused as she looked around "I remember running these corridors as a kid. Confused, no idea where I was going,"

"_It's times like this I look back and actually appreciate what Mrs. Ause did for me. She showed me how to remember the compound's layout, she taught me how to be self sufficient, how to make my own meals, prepare for life ahead. She might as well have been my mother,"_ Rileya thought to herself.

She finally reached the exit of the mansion and walked outside, stopping for a second to absorb the feeling of the cold winter evening. She looked at the skyscrapers in the distance, longing to be out of the compound.

"Wish I could be out there," Rileya said to herself as she began walking to the office building. On her way over, out of her peripheral, she saw a security officer on the top of the Weapons Testing Facility vanish behind an air conditioning unit as if they had been pulled back by someone. But as soon as she looked back, nothing seemed to have changed.

"Probably just my imagination," she assured herself as she continued her trek to the office building.

It was a cold, December evening; the lights were on, and light snowfall covered the grey buildings and concrete road. As Rileya walked on, she noticed a soft, white flake drop onto her nose.

She looked to the cloudy sky, _"Snow. It will always remind me of that day... The day my father was accused of murder..."_ Rileya looked down with a disgusted expression, _"And how you happily admitted to it. You laughed saying that the woman had it coming! How you said you witnessed the assassin brutally murder her! How you described the killing..." _Rileya looked up, anger in her eyes, _"I hope you die suffering."_

When Rileya arrived at the security office, she noticed a peculiar security officer talking with the secretary. His jacket had dirt on it.

She called him out, "Excuse me, but why is your jacket so dirty? The rule is that all employees have to have their uniform in good condition."

The officer turned around and saluted, "Officer Locke, ma'am. I fell down after I was nearly hit by a warthog," replied the officer flatly.

Rileya was surprised when she noticed that the security officer was a young man; he had a blank look on his face; no emotion shone through the dark, calculating eyes.

Rileya Instead of telling him off she said, "W-Well those test drivers. They can be real pain sometimes. Haha."

"Yeah." the security officer responded flatly.

"They're in the Surveillance Room," the secretary said, "Go right on in."

"_What's with that guy? He seems to be a dead man walking. It's almost like seeing a shadow that got off the ground... But I have to say, he's not bad looking."_ Rileya thought to herself as she and the security officer walked into the Surveillance Room.

All the security IT members were surrounding one monitor.

"What's going on? Wait, let me guess: a worker got caught in one of the automated manufacturing arms." Rileya said acrimoniously.

"This is serious, Rileya. Something really bad could happen." Captain Sara Kaylar snapped back, "I don't have time for your attitude."

Rileya began to make worse case scenarios, "Is it a major system malfunction? Is the factory going to black out? Is a worker going to impl—"

Captain Kayler interrupted her, "Someone has breached the security net," Rileya stood shocked at what she was hearing, "but all he disabled was the security cameras. The camera keeps showing a recording from just about half an hour ago. Can you fix it?" The monitor showed the same people walking in an endless cycle on and then back onto the opposite ends of the screen.

Rileya remained in place, motionless.

"There's someone in the compound…" Rileya mumbled wide-eyed.

"Rileya, get a hold of yourself," Captain Kaylar said to Rileya. "We checked all the possible places an intruder could be, and it seems that there never was one. It's just some lucky hacker."

"R-Right. I'm on it." Rileya sat down in front of the monitor, brushing silky long blonde hair away from her eyes, and seeming played the monitor keyboard like a master pianist, then, as if like magic, the cameras began showing a live feed.

"Impressive," commented Officer Locke who seemed to appear from the shadows, "It seems the whole team of people from IT couldn't figure this one out." The IT team looked dejected.

"I'm more qualified than them for this job." Rileya replied with a tone of superiority.

The security officer looked down at the monitor, and Rileya saw the dark eyes gained a subtle look combining awe and anger; but one that no one else noticed.

Rileya would have asked what was wrong, but Captain Kaylar didn't give her the chance, "Well, you sure make things easy for the technical department. Maybe you should work here."

"Or take this off their paychecks," Rileya said and began to walk towards the exit, but bumped into Officer Locke.

"S-Sorry," Rileya said embarrassed. She thought she felt a brush of air by her hand.

Captain Kaylar said, "Well, in any case, thanks Rileya. We really wouldn't be able to do the things we do without your help."

Officer Locke backed out of the way.

"No problem, Sara." Rileya replied at the door.

"Please keep it professional around here, Rileya," the Captain retorted; obviously mad that Rileya called her by her first name during work hours.

"Alright, fine. I'll keep it professional around here, Cap'n." Rileya said as she walked out; she saw Kaylar's angry expression.

Right as she stepped outside, someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"What now, Sara? Are you mad that I—" Riley began as she turned around, but saw that it was the security officer. "O-Oh, Officer Locke." she said, taken by surprise.

"You dropped this." he said as he held up a silver ring.

Riley gasped and took the ring and timidly stuttered out, "Th-Thank you." and she quickly walked away.

"I must be really out of it today. I see a security officer disappear, I manage to drop my precious ring Mrs. Ause gave to me; not to mention that we seem to have hired a ninja... What if he's the one who broke in?" Rileya said to herself, but then remembered that no one suspicious was seen in the premises, "What am I thinking? There's no one in here. There's no one in here. There's no one in here..." Rileya repeated this phrase in her head all the way back to her room.

When she had finally gotten to her room the sun was about down, and looked into a pair of hazel eyes in the mirror. She thought as she stared back into the sharp wit the eyes seemed to hold.

_"Today was such an odd day, but the one thing that bothers me is that security guard. What was his name? It was... Officer Locke. That's it. He's seems to be almost like a ghost of some sort; a phantom that has come to kill someone, but I have the strangest feeling that he's a bit lonely..."_

Rileya fell to sleep.


End file.
